In the manufacture of semiconductor components and integrated circuits, it is desirable to form individual acitve and/ or passive components comprised of single crystal semiconductor material. Various methods and techniques have been developed to form such components of single crystal semiconductor crystal so that the depth, conductivity, and lateral extent of doped regions of components may, to some extent, be controlled. Techniques heretofore employed in the formation of such components and devices have been ineffective in creating devices having well-defined and precisely controlled junctions. The term junction is herein defined as that region common to the abutment of two materials having dissimilar properties. Precisely defined junctions are denoted as junctions having substantially zero degradation with distance of the respective material characteristics of each abutting material near the junction. Precisely defined junctions are desirable to provide optimum operating device characteristics which heretofore have been unachievable utilizing conventional masking-etching-diffusion.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a method of constructing semiconductor electronic devices having well-defined junctions therein. It is a further object of the present invention to provide devices having such well-defined junctions. It is another object of the present invention to provide semiconductor resistors having well-defined junctions therein and methods of making same. It is a further object of the present invention to provide diodes and stacks of diodes having well-defined junctions and methods of making same. It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide a solar cell having well-defined junctions therein and methods of making same. It is still a further object of the present invention to provide special property resistors having extremely controllable temperature coefficients of resistance with well-defined junctions therein and methods of making same. It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a magneto-photoconductor and methods of making same. It is still a further object of the present invention to provide a high voltage rectifier having well-defined junctions therein and methods of making same.